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Sara Wachter-Boettcher - Technically Wrong (San Francisco)

Tuesday, November 7, 2017 - 6:00pm

Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask why all these digital products are designed the way they are. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares: Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.

Sara Wachter-Boettcher takes an unflinching look at the values, processes, and assumptions that lead to these and other problems. Technically Wrong demystifies the tech industry, leaving those of us on the other side of the screen better prepared to make informed choices about the services we use--and demand more from the companies behind them.

Sara Wachter-Boettcher is a web consultant based in Philadelphia and the author of two books for web professionals: Design for Real Life, with Eric Meyer, and Content Everywhere. She helps organizations make sense of their digital content, and she speaks at conferences worldwide.

Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask why all these digital products are designed the way they are. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares: Chatbots that harass women.